Federated Farmers remains optimistic over achieving its target of $150 for a good mid-season lamb, despite this season’s lower than expected farm-gate returns. “Given the financial pressure sheep and beef farmers are under, reaching our T150 target is more important than ever,” says Bruce Wills, Federated Farmers Meat & Fibre spokesperson.”Our industry is expecting yet another tough year, with the forecast average before tax profit for a sheep and beef farm in 2009/10 just $38,900 a year.

“That’s a disturbing 30 percent decrease on last season’s return, which may be compounded by the high New Zealand dollar. The pain being felt by sheep and beef farmers is real so the problems with our industry must be addressed if we are to have a viable future. “To rescue our sector, we need to think boldly, but more importantly, act boldly to make the most of the opportunities offered by lamb and wool. The current reforms of our sector are too little, too timid and too slow.

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Send your dumb kid to law school and put your bright kid into agriculture, not the other way around. That was the blunt message from Federated Farmers chief executive Conor English, who expressed his concern about the future of agriculture in NZ during an industry update in Gore last week reports The Southland Times. “Running a farming business in NZ is complex and we need intelligent people to do it,” he said.

Mr English, who was on a tour of Southland last week, told about 50 farmers at the meeting that farm succession was the sleeping giant of agriculture.  The youngest of 12 siblings, Mr English said he was both a country boy and a city kid. He grew up on a 7000-stock-unit property at Dipton but has spent the past 18 years in Wellington, and been Fed Farmers chief executive for more than a year. “How do we get more young ones into agriculture? “That’s the real challenge going forward,” he said.

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Federated Farmers is hearing reports from many farmers who have been badly affected by the snow storm hammering the central North Island. “This brutally cold southerly flow couldn’t have come at a worse time for Hawke’s Bay farmers. There’s a massive risk that the combination of snow and cold winds could put stress on newborn livestock,” says Kevin Mitchell, Federated Farmers Hawke’s Bay president.  “Several Hawke’s Bay farmers are in the middle of late lambing and sadly, some newborns may perish in the freezing conditions reports Scoop. The snow has unfortunately hit at a critical time in the farming cycle. Farmers I have spoken to worked through the night in order to save as many lambs as possible.

“The central North Island high country and hills and ranges of Hawke’s Bay have been hit particularly hard by the unexpected icy blast. Properties over 300 metres above sea level awoke this morning to a blanket of white ranging from 20cm to a metre deep.“I’d have to say this is the worst blast of cold weather I’ve experienced for many years. The area is still littered with fallen trees that have collapsed under the weight of the snow.

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Federated Farmers says the Government’s decision to bring agriculture into its proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS) by 2015 is “highly disappointing”. And it now wants the Government to argue in Copenhagen next December – when details of the global new deal on post-Kyoto emissions are negotiated – for agriculture to not be included in carbon schemes reports The ODT.

“The Government must seek to remove agriculture at Copenhagen in December,” said Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson, of Waimatua. “While we support efficient and sustainable resource use, we have big concerns over the impact of an ETS.” The Government is relying on carbon-trading through its proposed ETS to help it meet a target of a 10 to 20 percent cut in carbon emissions on 1990 levels by 2020.

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Federated Farmers latest local government rates survey has revealed two farms paying over $100,000 in rates this year and a further six paying over $50,000. The self selecting survey, conducted in late August, garnered 520 responses. It discovered rural property rates have increased by an average of 12.5 percent in 2009/10 – significantly higher than the current inflation rate of about 2 percent.

“The survey vigorously reinforces the Federation’s call for local government funding reform,” says Don Nicolson, Federated Farmers President. “We undertook the survey in response to a high number of members’ complaints about hefty rates increases following significant property revaluations. Farmers have been hit particularly hard by these revaluations, as councils still rely on the archaic and fundamentally flawed property-value rating system.

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Farmers fear that tighter rules around bad debts might lead to more hard times in the rural sector, MPs were told today reports The ODT. Fed Farmers appeared before an inquiry set up by Labour, the Greens and Progressive parties to look at the interest rates charged by banks. Federated Farmers economics spokesman Phil York said that the overdraft interest rates charged to farmers had fallen from 11.18 percent to 8.50 percent from last December to May.

This represented a cut of 2.86 percentage points, whereas the Official Cash Rate OCR had fallen by 4 percentage points. It appeared that cuts in wholesale interest rates had been passed on, but that the OCR cuts had not passed through to wholesale rates.  Agricultural debt stood at $49 billion in June 2009, which meant even a 1 percentage point change in interest rates would be worth $460 million dollars to farmers.

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Otago farming leader Rob Lawson has spent the past two weeks investigating one of NZ and Australia’s largest supermarket chains as one of 30 participants in the Woolworths Agricultural Business Scholarship Programme in Sydney. Mr Lawson, who runs a family sheep and cattle farm at Waikouaiti, was the only participant from outside Australia and the first NZer to attend the programme in the three years it has been run.

The Woolworth’s programme is run in conjunction with the Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales and the University of Western Sydney, and during the two weeks participants hear from senior Woolworth’s staff and external experts, visit stores and distribution networks and complete group and course work reports The ODT.

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In the year or so since Federated Farmers went through its latest three-year leadership shuffle it has become obvious that the organisation has lifted its game. The president, Southland sheep and beef farmer Don Nicolson, has had the good fortune to arrive at the same time as two new key members of his management team, chief executive Conor English and marketing strategist David Broome reports The Dom Post. Together, this threesome has breathed new life into a farm dog that was beginning to look tuckered out. Comparisons with the previous administration are unfair, however, because of a vital difference – the change in government.

Labour began its nine years in office being fairly friendly to farmers. I remember Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton laughing and joking with the Feds’ leadership at conferences. But that changed as Labour was forced to forge new alliances to stay in power. Helen Clark saw the political expediency in making the environment a major policy plank and that led to conflict with farmers. For the Feds, Manawatu dairy farmer Charlie Pedersen’s shoot from the lip tough talking was just what was needed to convey farmers’ feelings. The behind-the-scenes lobbying was for chief executive Annabel Young, a former National MP, although she became embroiled in staffing matters.

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“The results make for ugly reading and illustrates that the recession’s full bite is yet to come,” says Don Nicolson, President of Federated Farmers. “Coming off the back of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s latest situation report, farmers remain deeply pessimistic about the state of the general economy and their own prospects for the next 12 months. “A net 45 percent of farmers believe the economy will deteriorate further casting doubt on those calling the recession’s end.  This has major ramifications for Thursday’s Monetary Policy Statement and Official Cash Rate decision.

“While Dr Bollard seems set to keep interest rates on hold, this survey and the concussive effect of low dairy payouts for the foreseeable future, raises the spectre of an ‘L’ shaped recession where the economy will bump along the bottom for a number of quarters. “Federated Farmers economists believe urban New Zealand is yet to feel the full effect of the slowdown striking the provincial economy.  “Over three quarters of dairy farmers expect business profits to be lower.  A net 36 percent of all farmers expect to reduce spending over the coming 12 months, again led by dairy. “While export prospects and the outlook for agriculture over the medium term remain excellent, returns for the past season and the forthcoming season will be down.

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To avoid future costs, cattle farmers should consider using NAIT-compliant electronic ear tags when they tag livestock this year, says National Animal Identification and Tracing project (NAIT) chairman Ian Corney in the Rural News. The suggestion follows a recent move by the Animal Health Board (AHB) to approve NAIT-compliant tags as secondary tags under its national identification programme to control bovine tuberculosis in cattle and deer. ‘The great thing about the AHB move is farmers can avoid having to apply an additional ear tag to cattle to meet anticipated NAIT obligations,’ says Corney. ‘We’re asking cattle farmers to consider the approved electronic tags for newly born animals that will be alive in July 2011 – when NAIT is planned to become a regulatory requirement,’ he says. If the NAIT scheme is approved, RFID [radio frequency identification device] tags will become mandatory from 2011.Farmers could avoid the need to re-tag in 2011 if they start using the new technology this year.

However Federated Farmers is warning farmers not to purchase ear tags in anticipation of the proposed National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) scheme. “We are concerned with comments made by the chairperson of the NAIT governance group urging farmers to purchase low frequency radio-frequency identification (RFID) ear tags,” says Lachlan McKenzie, Federated Farmers Dairy chairperson. “Aside from the fact NAIT is by no means guaranteed in its current guise, this makes no commercial sense whatsoever when many farmers have little or no farm income.

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